Hardware
The Hardware is a superweapon cannon mounted to a modified ABC. It was one of Mainframe's earliest inventions and records detailing everything about it were stored in the Principal Office Archives. As a weapon of mass destruction it fires projectiles of highly charged energy that can easily destroy entire Sectors, seal Portals, and disrupt shields. It actually has enough firepower to seriously damage the System Operating Core. The cannon was so heavy that two additional anti-gravity discs had to be attached either side to keep the carrier stable in flight. It also has an entire array of onboard equipment and consoles, ideal for Mouse to hack into the Web thereby erasing and protecting Mainframe's Web Address on the Web. The powerful cannon has two fundamental flaws in operation. Firstly, the Hardware does not have its own power-source so it is absolutely necessary to find something, or someone, to charge it. Since it was required to be mobile, only Hexadecimal could act as a suitable battery. Secondly, in battle the Hardware cannot possibly defend itself from close-quarter combat, being outside the scope of the enormous turret above. Not to mention the cannon lacks pin-point accuracy needed to engage fast-moving targets. Because of this, anyone working on the platform was vulnerable. During the Web War it had to be escorted by six ABCs and Dot welding a Plasma Launcher to protect them. When the Web invaded Mainframe it became a high-priority to close their Portal and no conventional weapon could successfully destroy such a thing. Mainframe was forced to form an alliance with the virals, as Megabyte already occupied the Giedi Prime sector, only there could it be manufactured by his team of scientists. However without the software from the Archives the Hardware is useless, so Bob requested Phong to download it to the Silicon Tor. The old sprite knew the potential risk of handing over such dangerous technology to a megalomaniac virus and was initially reluctant, but Bob soon forced him to download it immediately. The invading Web Creatures identified the Hardware as a major threat and began attacking it, this overwhelmed Mainframe's forces until Megabyte ordered his army to support the CPUs. Unbeknownst to the heroes Megabyte was planning to betray them all along. He had included a Sprite-sized Missile within the construction plans of the superweapon with controls to launch it, and Bob inside, straight into the Web. (Web World Wars) As the Viral Wars began, Hexadecimal turned the Hardware around to fire upon the Principal Office shields, bringing the city into submission. Victory was almost assured when the shields were taken off-line by a crashing ABC. Hex was instructed to power down, but the insane Super Virus wanted to continue her attack. Megabyte warned her that destroying the Core would result in the annihilation of Mainframe, and them along with it. Hex admitted this would be tragic, but still glorious nonetheless. Before she could attack the Hardware was utterly destroyed when struck by an incoming Game Cube. The charged energy from the device and the Game's own energy were force-fed right back into Hexadecimal. She was unable to detach from the Hardware because of the mass energy surge. Hexadecimal was unable to handle the immense power of the Cube and the Hardware. The Hardware exploded and Hex was nearly deleted in the process. (To Mend and Defend) Trivia * The largest component of the hardware is a reuse of the model for the Transformer in Bad Bob. Category:Weapons